Home & Car Maintenance (& a Giveaway from State Farm)

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Hey there! I'm Jessica. I think that motherhood should be savored, like a good piece of chocolate. But sometimes it feels like more duty than delight. Am I right? I'm working to change that. Read more about me here and this blog here.

Once upon a time, we lived in the land of extreme weather. We lived five years in a suburb of Kansas City, learning the ins and outs of blizzards, tornadoes, thunderstorms, and chiggers. I spent a lot of time inside.

Oh yes, yes, I did.

My favorite time of year was that Summer into Fall transition. The temperatures dropped, the humidity lessened, and the odd early freeze killed off the chiggers in our backyard. It was also the time of year to get the house ready for winter.

With pleasant fall weather, it wasn’t a problem to be out in the yard getting things ready for colder days. Taking the kids for walks was more pleasant. And since everyone around us was dropping into their own school year routine, it seemed like our days slowed down, freeing us up to do a little “nesting.” Painting fences, hanging storm windows, pulling down the sunscreens that we hung each summer to combat the high temps.

Take care of your home and car.

This time of year is ideal to check home and car maintenance items off your list before the weather and daily schedules change. You don’t want to run low on oil or fuel in a downpour. Neither do you want to think about home repairs during the busier days of fall.

Preparedness knows no season. They offer great tips for maintaining your car and home for safety.

Win a gift card.

This weekend one LifeasMOM reader will win a $100 giftcard to Home Depot, courtesy of State Farm.

To Enter:

Leave a comment telling us something that you’re doing to be better prepared in your home or on the road in the coming season.

This giveaway will be open until Monday, September 12, 2011, at 8 pm PST. Winner will be chosen at random and notified via email. Please respond within 48 hours of notification email in order to claim your prize.

This giveaway is now closed. Congrats to the winner: joannamattas@

Disclosure: I received a Home Depot gift card, courtesy of State Farm.

About Jessica Fisher

I believe you can get great meals on the table -- and still keep that pretty smile on your face.

Comments

This summer has been a really hot one – hot enough to make working outdoors for any length of time dangerous. So now that the temps are finally falling we’ll be doing a lot of landscape maintenance – pruning, weeding, and mulching – so that we won’t have so many chores to do in the Spring!

I hve started keeping a first aide kit in the car. Also, In addition to regularly changing the oil, I am also tracking the mileage to replace the transmission fluid every 30,000 miles (this is important too, even though I did not know about it until recently!)

I’m down here in Texas, where currently the whole state seems to be going up in flames. I’m not sure we will make to winter. But, I plan to check all of the windows for air leaks, give the furnace a good cleaning, clean the fireplace, check the vehicles anti-freeze levels…you know, those sorts of things.

We are checking the lint trap of the dryer with each use and getting out the extra lint. We check the coils behind the refrigerator monthly and we make sure that we have driveway salt for the upcoming winter.

Let’s see… Right now we live in an apartment, so I’ve already gone ahead and sealed (uh, with duck tape!) some cracks in our windows that would let cool air in. We also recently got new tires for our car so that we don’t have to worry about that if there’s any ice on the ground!

We don’t have much of a winter here in SE Texas, but we do have to make sure our hurricane kit is ready in case of a storm this time of year. We’ll be doing a lot of yard work in a month or so, once the weather cools off a little more.

We will be pulling out our emergency car kit and checking it all as well as restocking as needed. Plus we are checking our pantries to make sure they are a little fuller to accommodate winter storms and illness. For the house we made sure we had enough de-icer for the sidewalks (essential here) and our shovels are in good order. Next year a generator is on the list! This year I will store more water.

We have to learn what to do to prepare our pool for winter. We didn’t really want a house with a pool, but this house was just SO perfect for us. We have never had a pool before and it has been a lot of work (and more money than we thought). So we are just starting to find out what to do for the winter. It’s hard when the temp is still hitting 100 daily to think about fall!

we are in the process of redoing flower beds to make things easier on ourselves. many flowers i don’t know what they are and many bushes i just don’t like. we are downsizing a bit in hopes of having beds that we can take good care of!

We have been checking many things on my car to get it ready for the winter. Things like tire pressure, oil, tubes and hoses. My car has got to last for a long time, I do noy mind taking the time for routine maintence.

My brother insists each family member must keep an emergency kit in the car. He supplies us with all the equipment – flashlight, blankets, emergency food, etc. I always feel safer driving in the winter knowing I have his kit!

We’re looking into air-sealing our home – it’s only 8 years old, but it seems drafty to me. I’m also planning a huge clean out of our freezers, so I have plenty of time to stock up on fresh things for the holiday season.

When shopping grocery sales, I’m adding an item or two that would be appropriate for emergency food (i.e. canned meat, crackers, bottled water). In the event of severe weather, I want to be able to feed my family if we do not have electricity for an extended period of time.

I will be locating our shovels, car ice removers, getting the car checked and making up a “sick bin” filled with a carton of saltines, cans of chicken soup ( using the current Campbell’s coupons!) bottles of Gatorade and extra covers for our digital ear thermometer.

Today, I actually took down all of the vents in each room and cleaned them. I am also going to be dusting off all of the electric baseboard, so that they are ready to go when they are needed to be turned on. I am also going to change the batteries in the fire detectors and check on the fire extinguisher (that is something that I have not done in a long time). I also need to revamp our roadside emergency kit – I don’t have everything that I should have in the car! Thanks for the tips!

Well, hubby’s always working on one project or another and we’ve only been in this home for 2 months but the most recent project was changing oils in the cars and installing a watering system for the trees.

in VA the temps have just started feeling like fall. This past weekend we mowed our yard, probably for one of the last few times, cleaned out the gutters on our house, and trimmed one of our big trees away from our house and a power line. we also cleaned out the filter in our furnace. lots of little maintenance to be done now that it’s not boiling hot outside! : )

I’m getting new tires for the car my teenagers drive so they have sufficient traction in our Ohio winter. I’m also plugging some newly-discovered small gaps where pipes exit the house. Every little bit helps! Thanks for the giveaway!

I am stashing water, some energy bars, and an extra change of clothes for the kids, plus blankets in a permanent location in the car so that we can be ready for anything (either pleasant or unpleasant)

My extended family was affected by the spring tornadoes and spent 6 days without power. Even though we never lost power, I learned important lessons through their experience. We just got a generator, two hand cranked radios, several hand crank flashlights. I feel better already!

We’re going to be trying to power wash the back deck and the siding on the front of the house. Also, we need to put down new mulch in front of the front and back steps to help cut down on the mud that will get tracked into the house this winter by both kids and dog!

We just got a new to us vehicle (paid cash!). I’ve got a few things for emergencies tucked in the trunk, but realized I need to give our first aid kit a complete overhaul as well as purchase some new flashlights. We live where winters can be harsh, so I need to stock it with some blankets and winter gear as well in case we ended up stranded somewhere. In the past I’ve tucked those hand warmer things in the glove compartement and they’ve come in handy for sporting events, etc. where it is cooler than we anticipated.

Last winter we had a HUGE freeze and were locked in the house for 4 days straight! The whole city was shut down with power outages and everything! While we had an ok stocked pantry, we did run out of bread and milk and had to walk in 3ft of snow to the corner store to buy the last loaf, definitely not wanting to repeat this we will be sure to be ready this year. Well stocked pantry, propane always full in the grill (for cooking when power is out) and extra milk and bread in the freezer. Brr!!

We are getting the necessary oil changes and repairs on our vehicles. We are also going to be getting double pane window in the upcoming weeks to have better insulation and sound protection since we live near an airport. Really looking forward to peace and quiet!! LoL

I’m preparing my home for an interesting Fall with my parents moving in with my family as they lost everything in the fire in Bastrop, Tx this week. I am also preparing our evacuation plan as the drought & fire danger continue…& I am praying for rain. And an almost one year old who is ready to walk. And my two and a half year who just got her first tap shoes, what a new season it will be!

We had a very hot summer this year. To get prepared for winter, we will be cleaning out the flowerbeds and getting all the weeds out and laying new mulch. We replaced the french doors in our dinning room. The sun sets on that side of the house and it usually heated the dinning room really hot. We got energy eff. french doors so it lets in less heat from the sun!

oh goodness… we have been cleaning out the garage to store all the summer stuff…replacing faulty gutters and fixing some siding…this year we are doing more than last…last year was rough with welcoming the third baby…a year helps to get you back on track!

I just had 3 of my slow leaking tires repaired, I didn’t want to worry about whether I was going to have to air up my tires anymore, especially since my daughter started preschool this year and I drive her in.

We do regular car maintenance things like oil changes and services. I’m planting to avoid soil erosion during our rainy winter season. We get the gutters cleaned, moss removed from the roof and power wash the driveway and patio. I do a ton of watering and weeding and harvesting of our homegrown fruits and veggies.

We are new to “cold” weather, having moved from Texas to Kentucky, so we’ll see what we need to do this winter! Right now, though, we’re stocking up on winter clothing for our kids, something they haven’t had much of before now. Thanks for the giveaway!

I prepare my home by cleaning gutters trimming back tree that hang over phone electric wires very safely I might add. Seems every year the weight of the branches come down on the lines it is good to get that all cleaned up ahead of time. I bring the garden hoses in and cap the faucets. And just take a look around at things that might be affected by cold weather.

For our cars, we check tires (bought new for one) and check fluids. For the house a lot of yard work. Pulling out garden plants, weeding, and raking. Later we’ll seal windows with plastic to help with heat loss for winter.

Winter’s are nice here in the desert. We don’t have to worry too much about extreme cold temps. We do a nice Fall cleaning of our home. We replace filters, wash window screens, give the house a good dusting top to bottom, etc. It feels so good to get it all done.

We are having a water problem, so we are putting drainage pipes in ourselves and sealing the outside bottom of the foundation. Other then that make sure the snow blower is tuned up and we have rock salt on hand to get ready for a wonderful winter.

I’ve made a emergency kit for our home with 3 days worth of water,food , a manual can opener,a camp stove,candles,matches and medicine for each family member. I also keep a kit in the car with the various fluids for it and a blanket and a bag of cheap cat litter in case I get stuck in the snow or we have a ice storm.

My husband is finishing our master bathroom. Unfortunately, we had our pipes freeze last year, so this will hopefully insulate the pipes coming in so the upstairs has working pipes.
We’ve also done a massive cleanout as my mother has moved in. Less stuff just feels good and now everything seems to have a home because it has to!

I have been helping my parents sort through their house and tag a lot of things for a garage sale. In doing so, I’ve realized that I need to go through my own home again with a fine-tooth comb and get organized. We have simplified our belongings, but I’d love to get the stuff we’ve kept organized, so it doesn’t look like so much clutter! Since we rent, we don’t have to worry about winterizing the outside, but I’d love to make our house warm and cozy on the inside! 🙂

We are weather stripping all the windows due to the “Great Lady Bug Invasion of 2010.” We had thousands of lady bugs infest our “brand new” 100-year old home last fall. They are nasty and they bite and they stink when you squish them and they bury themselves into every nook and cranny to survive the winter; come spring they flock to the windows to escape – like some scene out of a horror movie – covering the glass so thickly that you cannot even see daylight.

Well for us, we prepared in July for hurricane season and re-prepared when Irene was heading straight for us and we have mild winters typically, so our preparations are done for now, but it’d be great to have the gift card to add some things to our kit, like a better battery radio and some tarps.

Where I live, winters are mild. However, I do make sure I have lots of bottled water and prepared foods in case of a power outage. My kids love it when we have no electricity because they know Mom is going to make them hot chocolate on the gas stove and we sip it together by candle light.

We are planning to get the air conditioner serviced. It has had such a tough workout this summer and we want it to be prepared for a long and healthy life. Cooler temps here mean a chance to open a bit!

I restocked and switched out old and expired canned goods and rations that I had stored in our emergency stash in the basement. We also put new batteries in our smoke alarms, flashlights, and radon detector.

I’m actually getting an emergency kit together. Since it’s pretty expensive, I’m doing a little at a time but I’m almost done now. All I have to do is just reorganize everything and put it somewhere where it’s easily accessible.

With Hurricane Irene, our basement flooded. We are working slowly to replace all that the water damaged, but it’s a long slow process. So we’ve been spending an awful lot of time at Home Depot looking for solutions to this problem so it doesn’t flood again with the next big rainstorm!

Our area (NC coast) was hit pretty hard by hurricane Irene. We’re doing some big repairs to as a result – new roof for our shed and fixing the roof on our home to prevent leaks in the future. We’re also considering a generator so we don’t lose our freezer meals next time around…

I’m going to get ice melt and kitty litter (for traction) to put in my car for the winter, as well as getting a better cell phone for emergencies. I will also be getting my car thoroughly checked for winter.

I have my vehicle stocked for emergencies, and I am working on my home. Seasonally, we have been preparing the farm for winter. We just put up the last of the hay. My garden is not quite ready to be put to bed for the winter, but my tiller is. I would love to win this gift card. We really need to stain our deck!

My husband is the ultimate handy man. Everyone at Home Depot knows him. He has built our deck, re-plumbed the house, built our back porch, just too much to mention. He winterizes our cars, changes all the fluids, etc. He replaces rotten wood, fixes loose boards, fixes our pool….the gift card would be a real blessing!

Well, we just had new brakes put on our truck as well as cleaned, tidied, and swept the garage out in anticipation of the cold. Next we will be fixing up the kids closets so that they are more useable and we can change out summer clothes for winter clothes easier.

I make sure I have the pantry stocked with food and non-food items. I am disabled and going out on snowy days in cold Michigan can be hard. I also keep my car above 3/4 of a tank in case I got stuck and needed to run the car for awhile.

It is time to clean the gutters, caulk the windows, clean out the pellet stove and flue, take the vehicle in for an oil change, tire rotation and check all the fluids. This is a very busy and productive season.

We always make sure to get our routine maitanance on our vehicles done before colder weather hits. We also do a complete home check making sure all our caulking, gutters, doors and plumbing are ready for colder weather.

One thing we’ll be doing very soon is replacing our windshield wipers in great hopes that rain will come our way 😉 We’ve had 100+ temps and a horrible drought for most of the summer. Our wipers are fried and dried.

This fall, I’m trying to be more intentional with my time. For the first time in my life I have made a daily schedule and calendar that I check regularly. I’m even going to get my littles involved soon.

Because we live in Florida other than rain we only have one season (hot). Before we travel north for the holidays we always get a once over on our vehicles to make sure it can handle the drive and th weather conditions.

We’re going to fix a section of our roof that doesn’t have very good protection, do little things like change the furnace filter and wash down some cupboards, and make lists of the things that should be done so we can be more organized and do what needs to be done.

I’m in the process of trying to clean out the office/toy and game storage/craft area room of the house. Such a large task, but I’m hoping at the end I will be able to find things much easier and it will free up some of my time!

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So let's talk about it, using "our big girl words."

Hi! I'm Jessica. I want to help YOU get great meals on the table -- and keep that pretty smile on your face.Read more here.

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